, 1887-09-13
LAUREL CAMP

'SAo 6NNAo
with you'll and dainty Bess Fleming
perched herself disconsolately on the arm
of the lounge in what her brothers called
their ''bssrraaaoir, " and gazed with big, visit
full gray ayes on h animated scene before
her.
The festive preparations are indeed al
most enough to make one wish one had
been born a boy. Floor, chairs and table
are covered with a choice but varied col
lection of hunting boots, fishing tackle,
entomologist's paraphernalia of waxen
headed pins, chloroform bottles and but
terfy nets, favorite authors, hammocks,
and other evidences of a fright royal
good time" The masculine
of the room were all 30 very deeply en-
crossed that their envious sisters plain
tive wish fell or almost unheeding ears.
Hal muttered: "W-wish you couldl''
Tom gazed at her through the micro
scope glass he was polishing, with an eye
enormously enlarged thereby, and smiled
in conscious masculine superiority; and
only good natured Steenie paused in his
struggle with his knapsack (which SEEM
ingly declined to accommodate his
blankets, a work on anatomy, a gossamer
coat and a dismembered gum sufficiently
long to say with genuine brotherly good
will:
And you should go in a minute, Pop
ity-it would be worth ten seasons t. you
If ii were not for Val Graham"
"Val Graham! Who is he? Let him
stay at home, then. To make coffee in
n dear little kettle swung on three sticks,
to sleep in a hammock and be outdoors
all summerl' cries Miss Fleming, enthusi-
astically. ''Oh, 1 will gol What's the
matter with Mr.. GrahamI Is he n of
your fossilized professors who would
petrify a simple maiden? l don't care
what he is, you need not imagine 1 would
find time to look at him. l (magnani-
mously) won't mind him a bit"
But, b-b-bless you, my child, " ejacu-
lated Hal, energetically, "it's not a ques-
ton of whether you wouldn't mind Val.
The boot is IN the other leg. It's Val
would mind you. There's some roman
tic story about his being brought up by
an uncle who had been cruelty treated by
some lovely firt. Youthful affections
trampled on, and all that kind of thing.
Takes to the life of a hermit and edu-
Gates the ingenious Valentine to regard
with horror the whole female sex. Val
would sooner face a 'wenomous wiper
than a woman, and l am confident that
if he suspected we meditated such treason
as the introduction of the dreaded ele-
ment, he would flee to the uttermost
parts Of the earth rather than go with
us; and he the prime suggester Of the
camping scheme, too! Lastly and finally,
how could such a luxurious little lady
rough it with a lot of boys among the
jungles of New York state? 1t is impossi-
ble."
aENI 1a~ ra- .,,-N,-.I1z. - T
could go and you would take me, if it
l hate himl' cried Bess, stormily.
"a letter for you, Mr.. Stephen" and
the dignifed butler steps solemnly over
the debris and looks with stern disap-
proval at the disordered room.
From Val himself, Is it net, Steenie?'
asked Tom.
Eyes. Too bad he can't go, after all
attack of malarial fever-knows you
will AVE a jolly time. Almost desperate
when l think of your starting without
me, >" reads Steenie, disjointedly.
Now I am goingl' and Bess starts up
i~mpetuously.
How al your"
you'll see. I'll take Martha to take
care of me. III be ready in an hour,
Martha and her budgets included" and
Bess vanished like a small whirlwind,
leaving the trio too much astonished to
do aught but stare at each other in silence.
Did she accomplish it? OF course; what
other result was possible to so much
energy and spirit? By the time the
others had finished their remarkable mas
culine packing, Bess bubbling over with
merry anticipation, was soothing the
dazed Martha, who was vibrating between
q feeling of gypsyish delight at what
seemed to her a mad escapade and gloomy
pr~esentiments of inevitable rheumatism.
4 4
The scene shifts to the wilds of the en-
pire state and a camp established in their
depths. This is no mere fashionable
tabernacle in the wilderness, but a real
camp with amateur cooks, with spicy
hemlock bed, and with a smoke blackened
kettle hanging over a swapping fire, the
smoke of which curls lazily upward,
making misty the delicate tracery of the
waving trees against the soft summer
sky, and the hammocks swinging like
huge cocoons between the trees, inviting
to drowsy repose.
A few yards away an unseen mountain
brook tumbles its ice cold water into the
rocky river, and the two sing together in
low monotone, telling of fern fringed
pools and gliding trout. Through arch
ways cut in the glossy laurel thicket can
be seen the paths that the feet Of the
straying campers have already worn to
the woodland haunts beyond.
But the glory of the camp is the struc-
ture variously known as the ''house,"
''shanty," or Laurel lodge" Built
against a little knoll, its supports living
trees, its roof of slabs (Which the busy
little river obligingly strews along its
banks from lumber regions farther
north), slopes almost to the ground at the
back. Its sides are a thickly woven mat
of hemlock boughs, held in place by